down by the water front

The Price is Right (Art Fairs and Affordable Art)

 

 

Ok I've slept on London's Frieze and Affordable Art art fairs...

More later, though on Frieze with its satellites of Moving image Contemporary Video and Sluice. And not least the very gripping (albeit mainly London-centric) graduates fair incorporated at AAF......

 
 ...So its true, there was an element of me being tired at AAF after looking at Frieze, along with the fairs connected...and it is true I was definitely more absorbed by these.

For me now though, there was also an element of being personally aware, in the light of so much seemingly not-so-obvious commercial art at Frieze, of NOT dismissing the art here, simply because of its more obviously commercial context by becoming an inverted-art-snob.

 
Price is the key here; the Affordable Art remit for prices are from £400 to £4000. No more, no less.

 
And I certainly found more than a couple of galleries and artists at AAF who I really liked a lot. And true this style and content of fair did seem more pret-a-porter-high-street than the *high* art of Frieze. Or at least more as a stall geared up ready to sell, with efficient take away wrapping service provided.

 
But the twist, I think, was some of the art was definitely more interesting than say, some of the more *sure-and-safe* big-bucks work I saw at Frieze.

 
The obvious conclusion is, that art wise it shows a more high street version of the Frieze style....
For example a current trend was far more obvious at AAF.. in a fashion analogy it could be seen as an complete haute couture, unwearable-in-most-circumstances, fine lace dress, that would be shown during fashion week, instead being represented, by a rash of a hundred or so wearable dresses with equally fine lace adorned collars and cuffs ...the detail all maxed out.

 
That isn't to say the works were not art in their own right. Just that the art here was more prone to the obvious add-on bells and whistles of content style and technique.

 
That said, some less obvious and also refreshing work was present by artists of all ages and reputations, for whatever reason, who possibly hadn't yet been *noticed* or whose works were not represented by the *kudos* of usually exclusive city-centric galleries (....the type who are interested in, and can afford, the off-the-scale space rental of Frieze).

With subtle differences in styles and content at AAF, a lot of the art shown, represented with no less kudos of equally well respected European and London galleries, including the few out lying UK galleries present, was less subtle. Showing art here that is different, certainly seems to stand out from the overall at AAF.

And it is certainly not as simple as lazily categorising it as a reduced version of *haute-art* nor calling it a blatant Zara of the art world:

Stating the obvious I know... but as with larger fairs, I found you certainly had to look, because the nature them, big or small, is to capture, in a non-contemplative environment for a very small window of time, a whole host of businesses to one degree or another bent on spotting a customer sale.

 
In that way Frieze visitors differ from AAF. Frieze is there to-be-seen-for-business kudos as well as the business it attracts. The larger crowd who venture to Regents Park's Frieze are in general, people who are perhaps more touristy, even art-savvy, whether voyeuristic-student, in the business or artists themselves, all this aside from the obvious and the not-so-obvious buyers. 

AAF definitely has less of these, and I certainly saw no one on their phone conducting a mega buck sale for a client. It seemed to attract Sloane's London and Surrey's National Trust crowd, on a family-day-out. Able indeed to spend upwards of £400 on a piece of art not necessarily previously seen... an impulse buy if you like... If it wasn't such a sunny - but not so warm October day, blankets, picnic baskets and a possible low-key-champers lunch in the park might have been more in evidence..). But maybe that is less Battersea Park and more suited for the first AAF at Hampstead Heath next weekend...

Art for your family mantle piece perhaps, rather than the full-on accepted art for art sake, of pure-investment by the more commercially minded buyers of Frieze.

And from that point of view, the genuine *I like that I'm going to buy it* approach of AAF is spot on. Unfortunately in accepting more adventurous art, there is perhaps a slower pace of enthusiasm and intake. So the price tag can, though certainly not always, come with safe-bet sea or landscapes, or cat, cow, horse or butterfly, kitschy on-trend tickets.

 

 

 

Showroom Dummies : Women's Bodies, Representation and Conflicting Taboo's

 

 

Oh the irony…… I am taking a few moments to reflect on the recently opened exhibition by Jennifer Dalton “Cool Guys Like You”…..an exhibition that shows through drawings, graphs and photographic image a startling, and in these troubled times, seemingly irrelevant conclusion that most of the guests invited onto critical cultural and political tv daily's are in fact male.

In an open letter to the hosts Jennifer askes :

“….I assume you like to see yourselves as critical thinkers. Might it be possible to get a bit more critical about the internal and external forces that encourage all of us to think that men produce the best ideas and cultural products out there? I think it might…..”

“…..In 2010, the most lopsided show among you featured only 17.5% female guests. The most balanced among you still only featured 34% female guests. The rest of you are in between, but mostly huddled around the more lopsided end of that spectrum.

If I may be so bold, WTF?…”

 

Indeed.

I am in Spain, I am on a roof terrace taking some sun… so far so good you might say.  I am reclining on the roof of an apartment building that is barely occupied, apart from a few ex-pat retiree, saga-ready-sun-bathers.

I ponder Jennifer Daltons letter.

It is peaceful, no noise other than the gurgling of the pool. I have no bikini top on, I notice a few tuts…wondering the cause I look up, and as one lady leaves and walks past, she utters “appropriate clothing”. Given the baking poolside circumstances I then begin to ponder the meaning of the word appropriate. And, while her male friend passes by, who, if I’m not mistaken gives me a sideways leer which leaves me feeling decidedly uncomfortable, I ponder some more.

And, setting aside the fact that I had not suddenly developed a weird case of clothing tourette's. Nor indeed had donned a pair of hobnail boots for a poolside splash. I assumed the comment to be directed at my shameful inappropriate state of bikini bottoms only…. And hoped that they, and not I, had lost a few marbles in the heat.

I am in Spain, nothing surprises me, least of all an oxymoron of attitudes…so I took both with a huge pinch of salt.

 

So suitably distracted I began to address… sigh!… this obsession with women's bodies.

Specifically a cultural thing this was not. I was not on a remote beach in rural Africa or transgressing some obvious cultural opine. Nor out of *the usual context* of beach/poolside, distractingly flashing in the office or on the bus.

The scene was set in a country, for good or bad, who’s beach culture.. ahem …embraces the female form in all its glory. And a media that never fails to pass up a newsworthy moment to show a well formed pair of tits just to liven things up.

But taboo it seemingly still is.

 

Why is it women and their bodies are deemed justifiably to be co-owned by everyone else?.

Either simultaneously being ignored, objectified, or repulsed.

This goes deep into history. And deep into the female psyche.

 

And...Ok.. I’m going to leave breasts out of it for now, but, cop a feel of this ….

 

Not since the likes of the Emily Pankhurst protests, or Germaine Greer and Susan Sontag has the female mind and her body been talked about so much in the media and yet is still is not represented. Only misrepresented.

She is either over achieving in school by beating all the boys. Or over achieving in the home by still doing a juggling act with family and career… errrm… job (..was this ever only in the domain of the 80’s ?). Or failing her kids by not sending them 3 times a week to after school Nuclear Physics club.

I think a suitable term was coined way back in the 20’s… “nurse, cook and bottle washer”. Only now you can add a few helpful electrical appliances, offset by stressed out school runs and high achieve low pay day jobs, like teaching for example. And of course a good dollop of societal guilt.

 

Things have changed; we’ve come a long way from the sentiments of Some Like It Hot and even ‘80’s Tootsie. When a man gets inside the female form and mind by cross-dressing and confiding …..her metaphorically, into bed.

 

 

But when we still have Rhianna prancing about in her latest vid offering all the female gumption of a modern day Whitney in Body Guard…..errrm? …here comes that sigh.. again.

It seems the current nature of any general discussion about female value is not about taboo particularly anymore… but a free for all female bully fest. And that, as always, includes women's opinion on women.

 

This furore along with the quagmire status quo of media institutions, including film, with its actors, directors and writers. Hides the fact that women's presence, is seriously worrying ( count em! - Jennifer is right …).

 

So in this current media scape with its constant image stream. Another skewed projection is feeding the collective female psyche, already bolstered by previous generations and history.

 

The subject of women is a whole vast and sweeping category. And all gender has a whole host of intricacies'….

 

Judges and Politicians are at the legislative and policy coal face. But our perception of regularly represented women in media (and therefore society as a whole) is deceptively weak and wrong for such a large populous.

The back room boys and their elders are still, it seems, stultifying efforts of *achieving* women to front of house window dressing.

Apart from a few... people like Kirsty Walk who battles away weekly with a more often than not, male panel, and Stephanie Flanders wrestling with financial debate. Along with people like the retired Joan Bakewell (who had a run-in with the BBC contesting institutionalised chauvinism in the hiring process....).

This, along with put your feet up main stream film rarities like Julie Delpy’s directorial debut 2 days in Paris which was a pretty neat achievement given the romantic label…rather than a war. 

 

Informed media, whether online, on paper or big screen is still the main shaper of how we discuss, react and perceive ourselves.

The balance of women included in this area is still thin on the ground. And with this imbalance, are slow to be generally encouraged, hired….or educated.

A catch 22… A riddled endemic state.

A responsible? image-factory with a glass ceiling that could just as well read why bother.  Female presence in a media that shapes us is still usually first and foremost preened, smiley and fit, by default.…

30 something's, staving off their sell-by-date. A mixed message, voyeuristic projection.

 

The knock-on political tone and, in effect reality, is that cuts and policy are now also reflected in that disadvantaged imbalance.

What kind of example for a healthy, indeed I stress, a mentally healthy society is that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

Don't Make Me Think....Just Raise The Ante

 

 

In amongst all the maelstrom of social media : with its tweets… be they purposeful political strategy's or not. Within all the FB nudges, pokes, likes, inane games, mind numbing time consuming *interactions* much lauded by the nay sayers and  robustly dismissed by the evangelical standard bearers of new media. Lies something vey close to my heart. Art.

And within this context of social media, like in every respected media. Artists make their art with their medium of choice and Critics critique it.FULL CIRCLE.

Art Fag City’s Paddy Johnson wrote an article in The L Magazine this past week on the relevance of Twitter art (a term she coined for convenience of the article). And in particular (as I see it) being very much on – her – patch, by citing local New York artists and raising questions about the relevance of the creative depth involved in their social media art.

Two artists in particular ; Man Bartlett and An Xiao (both having mentions on this blog before with their internet/twitter and in particular Man’s multi – on - line works). Were examples used in the line of questioning.  I also imagine that being on her relative home turf, her interaction with the physical side of the art and the artists is much more apparent than my one dimensional take on it… on-line-only, miles away in blighty etc. But as I see it this is not about how we interact with the medium more the art involved….So from this perspective….

Paddy Johnsons critique quite rightly, I thought, pointed out that maybe, just maybe in the light of growing bandwagon-esq lauding, commissioning and mucho – typing about the subject… had an air of devils advocate about it >>

That in the light of such possible complacency….Paddy Johnson saw the subject as needing a boot up the jacksy ……and she probably had the crux of it down ; that too much Twitter - art IS focused on it being a new-ish medium and so, as a vehicle, anything done with it automatically = art. Rather than raising questions through art about mediums like this by creating art within it. Her idea that the art should be pushing more boundaries of thought.

Close to my heart indeed! Artists, Art and their choice of how they use the medium :

To give a slightly different alignment. I am addressing local Dj Jose Fedez (while I’m in Spain)  in an up-coming post in lieu of the Electromar festival in Murcia later this month *headlined* by veteran Dj and all round share – it – with – the - people guy Moby.

The simplicity of the type of questions raised by the music industry such as created within mix music within Moby’s creative life time. Was very much about *new* mediums as vehicles and, was at the beginning, also seen as either an abstracted or removed experience of (original) music or a gravitational social experience.

One of Moby’s first majorly accepted pieces was made from an out and out lift from the Twin Peaks Theme Tune entitled Go. The advent of sampling and mixing had been around for a few years. But this blatant success by taking obviously readily suable material (from the film industry) AND making something that was more than aesthetically pleasing to quite a lot of people…subsequently made it a Classic in it own right. Advertising had already been *lifting* stuff for years by repackaging accepted music to endorse a product.

>> the bottom line being yes mixing is a medium, no, not everyone is going to create a Moby classic and yes people did eventually *get It* as a music – art – form. As opposed to renegade bad boys/girls *messing about* with new relatively un regulated media. It found its niches, it grew, changed, embraced. But it had a starting point.

 

I feel parallels here in the concept. And as far as Twitter art upping its communal ante Hell Yes !

But there is such a thing as subtly within art.

Paddy Johnson raised the question of not pushing the boundary's or that these artists were relying too heavily on the medium as content; social interactions and comments in that area ( to which she pointed out she already had a take on that, thank you, every time she IM'd a colleague from over her desk)… and did not need to participate in an art piece stating the same.

In spite of *chipping away slowly* or preaching to the converted by being one step removed from banality ie; stating the obvious, or an unchallenging foray into relational aesthetics. I believe there is a subtly in art that doesn't have to SHOUT the status quo down at every turn. That still moves or transcends though thought engagement. 

So to the medium :

Twitter engagement is personal one to one while being group oriented.This is the nature of it.

From this perspective Twitter art can be more than the sum of its parts.

It is shared in real time or delayed time. It can occupy or interact with a group *audience* much as live media or replay can.

Nothing that couldn't be done in a gallery space or other medium on a smaller scale in its pure form.

And to the art and artists :

The art exists not because of any lets-challenge-the-system-regulators or question its integrity as medium (unless the art and artist specifically set out to do that).

It exists in spite of the medium; it just allows a different kind of interaction. So the participatory/audience/artist are the only relational aspect. The art still exists in its own space. But experienced differently. Including the artists experience.

Just as with mix music and possibly the advent of electronic music perse, when it was luddite-ly seen only as bona fide if the instrument or engagement was *real* and not a  de-humanised product.

So to with social media as an inclusion – mechanism…even to the point of *fans*

But the art within the use of this mechanism is still its own entity and THEREIN lies the SUBLTY whether you think it banal, unquestioning, or not.

 

Hrag Vartanians article in Hyperallergic: Missing the Point About Twitter 

Art Fag City's article : Missing the Point About Don't Follow Twitter

Far and Near; The Macro and Micro of Detritus

 

 

Hmmmm, ok, having had a few ups and downs (and it has to be said some were expected, internet and wifi being one) during my time here in Spain. Another of which I could have seen coming, based on either sods law or the law of averages, was a breakdown in the plumbing. And sparing you the graphics, confronted me literally with the drain-end of this thing called hygiene. Now being a reasonably tidy person who likes to shower and keep scrubbed-up etc., this personal confrontation with a detritus-not-going-away-problem was indeed not to be sniffed at. Plumbers called in and majorly street level… ahem… clearing of apparently years of this. I was left in peace with a clean slate.

It did prompt an idea in my head that out of sight out of mind has become very much a part of my life, if not of most of us?. Of course this being a connected but still fairly rural place in Spain, with added nuances of hill top geology dictating the expedition of drain and bin waste ( it has to be said they do a bloody good job considering). And, with it sometimes being a very particular and inexact science, I think the term is, no mean feat.

So my inner city sensibilities, suitably jarred,  I began to ponder the historical context of the current exhibition 'Dirt: the Filthy Reality of Everyday Life': 24 March-31 August 2011at the Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE

“Following anthropologist Mary Douglas' observation that dirt is "matter out of place", the exhibition introduces six very different places as a starting point for exploring attitudes towards dirt and cleanliness: a home in seventeenth century Delft in Holland; a street in Victorian London; a hospital in Glasgow in the 1860s; a museum in Dresden in the early twentieth century; a community in present-day New Delhi; and a New York landfill site in 2030.”

 

The history of how we deal with it, the evolution of the industry and indeed cleanliness snobbery associated. Have all added to a hyper sensitivity to its existence and our attitude toward it. Cultural differences also with our different geographical and atmospheric conditions dictating.

A Tipping Point

 

All in all though the one seemingly overriding factor that shapes us today is the fact that disposal is still a taboo subject, no one really wants to deal with waste although money can be made from it.

From the rag and bone men of old to street cleaners in their nifty broom-mobiles, bin men, sewage cleaners to industrial sized shipping containers; the collectors, cleaners and transporters of waste. It is all *sorted* by people and things, and belongs in a place we don’t want to see.

And yet it comes back to haunt us with toxic land fills, mountains of plastic permanence, illness and adversity.

With toxic waste spillages at sea, vast floating Islands of detritus (as with an article here last year on the vortex of plastic collecting in mid Atlantic).

Future Sea of Plastic?

 

From the kid who chucks a Maccy D’s carton on the high street to the waste being dumped out of sight on the coastlines of fiscally poor countries: As with the Trafigura case the waste ship and the legal battle over its dumping of highly toxic crude oil detritus in a port on the Ivory Coast of Africa causing, (contested by the Oil and waste companies involved) untold long term illness for the people who live nearby and those who also *work* the waste tip it was dumped on.

The permanence and toxic nature of waste is the problem and the industry that has grown up around, for want of a better word, hiding it.

The idea that it is has yet to be shifted in the direction of a clear view as to how to deal with it.The real distance between us and it.

And, hopefully the start of the new project to confront the largely unregulated half century strong Fresh Kills Land Fill in New York and turn it into a park by 2030 is going to be a long overdue and highly visible address to that fact.

 

In the meantime don’t mention plumbing to me... for a while at least!

 

 

'Dirt: the Filthy Reality of Everyday Life': 24 March-31 August 2011
Venue: Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE

'Dirt: the Filthy Reality of Everyday Life' is part of the DIRT season from Wellcome Trust. Look out for online games and events at special dirty locations, including Eden Project, Glastonbury and other summer festivals.

“Highlights from 'Dirt' include paintings by Pieter de Hooch, John Snow's "ghost map" of cholera and Joseph Lister's scientific paraphernalia. 'Dirt' also includes a wide range of contemporary art, from Igor Eskinja's dust carpet, Susan Collis's bejewelled broom and James Croak's dirt window to video pieces by Bruce Nauman and Mierle Ukeles and a specially commissioned work by Serena Korda

A publication, also entitled 'Dirt: the Filthy Reality of Everyday Life', featuring essays by Rosie Cox, Virginia Smith, Elizabeth Pisani, Rose George, Robin Nagle, RH Horne and Brian Ralphwill accompany the exhibition, published by Profile Books, £20, 256pp.”

 

 

.....Back in a couple !

 

Les Invisibles; Gender Specific Smiles

 

 

 

I have been in Southern Spain a month now. Village life has a rhythm. The elements demand respect. Modernity is kept in a certain context; power blips are a-not-too-frequent fact. Signals bow to the weather. And things carry on in spite of; Fiestas a grand show of that fact. With spontaneity, a colourful flounce and stamp, to sing and dance with gusto songs new and old.

And after seeing the timely and vivid depiction of Juliao Sarmento’s women at CAC Malaga recently. I was made doubly aware that gender signs and signals have also appeared to shift but not entirely change; and that entrenched attitudes are still there, sometimes shaped in different forms, but still recognisable under the spotlight of black and white and grey.

 

Here are some of Juliao Sarmento’s Paintings and sculptures from 2000 to 2010;

 

Guibert 2007

Velvet head-bag facing mirror on table

 

The Passage Through Which One Becomes Another 2002

With two forms tied together

 

Being Looked at By Another and Femininity as Multipurpose Signifier; 2002

Women entwined in graphic acts with men in the Porn Star series. In the distance older and younger placed side by side, hand on shoulder.

 

Women's Physical Contact 2002

 

Slowly Dying 2005

Awkward stances and dialogues

 

Forget Me (with bucket) 2006

Heads obliterated

 

Juliao Sarmento born Portugal 1948

 

I have been here before both physically and in an ephemeral sense with the concepts. Its not an age thing particularly, nor, dare I say feminist, nor culture specific, nor indeed a rural/city thing. Although in feminist art references to the body or female form has never been far away.

In the context of my own experience even in the late Seventies this wasn't a brill time for being on the receiving end of lads *chancing their arm* or *trying their luck*, but that was still back in the day when any attention was meant to be seen as a *compliment* and young girls did group together, sometimes with the odd flutter of lashes, coy or otherwise, waiting for a catch. To be a wall flower at a dance was so not good seen as the pre-empt to becoming an old maid, unmarried, and *invisible* to any sort of male attention.

Surprisingly after the sexual liberation of the Sixties this ritual was still actively encouraged, that's what girls did and that's how boys responded. Of course the fundamentals of things don't change either….we certainly wouldn't get very far without any of us, gender aside, making a move !…..

 

…….So I was/wasn't entirely surprised to encounter this scenario at the weekend;

 

 

And ok, it was Carnival and I was there! ; filming with my phone camera as a way of documenting my time and the rhythm here.

Carnival night in the village square, by the church

 

Spotting a familiar face from a few days ago, having had a pleasant chat previously, I smiled, and then returned to filming.

And no surprises here because of this, he came up to me for a chat. He had also seen one of my drawings I’d made whilst here, so with an exchange of more pleasantries, holas, smiles and carnival nods later, I explained “yo trabajo” pointing to the camera *I’m working*, with, I hasten to add another smile. He stepped back arms raised saying, with a smile “ok ! do your thing”.

 

Video still; as carnival band starts off the night

Video still; watching a young break-dancer do some street moves to the rap band

 

 

So far so normal-ish….apart from the animated response to the fact I’d mentioned I was working… I carried on. A while later, still filming either with the camera down by my waist, looking at the general goings on that  I was filming or about to film. He came back (and I’m not apologising for my jadedness here, it had to be a he). I knew, I could feel his shadow breathing over my shoulder. And I don't see why I have to add this detail really but in the interest of non-ambiguity; I’d had no eye contact to suggest anything had changed, nor indeed that I wasn't working or had finished. Notice I am not assuming that this is about any…. errm… trying of luck or advances; but the fact I said I was working.

Maybe it would have been more obvious if I’d got the expensive *I am serious* camera equipment strapped around my neck making that grand statement for me.

Anyway, his opening line this time was “I was looking at you and you just looked so sad”.

I had a few thoughts run through my head at that point and had to resist a Janice-of-Benidorm style retort of *Like Oh Yeah! well I certainly am now !*…. or *That's so intuitive of you!…. and of course you're going to be the one to make me happy right?*….. *And by the way, which bit of I’m working don't you get?*.

Having had my fair share of the clichéd time honoured phrase *cheer up duck it might never happen* bantered from around builders sites and the like directed at my female friends and me from early teens (funny that, never male friends). The naïve youngster in me grew up and realised that the only possible required response to this kind of statement would be to either smile (as though having a certain implement shoved permanently in a gender specific place, with a grin to match). Or…… to resist the inflection.

I said instead, not wanting to encourage any more misinterpreted smiles “Sad?….And?  …..So?”. He literally took two steps back, going “Woah !! I’m only saying…..no offence !”. I went on to explain (making an effort to smile) “you know I’m an artist ?”. He replied emphatically “Oh Yes”.

Going beyond the call of duty, I thought, I explained “I’m absorbing things, the atmosphere”.

This is when he backed off, saying “Oh ! I totally misread ! ..no offence !“.

Me, now thinking; And prey?, what was there to misread in the first place?, concluded you either smile and it is an invite, or you don't and its seen an anger management affront.

It is honestly the first time I have said “I’m an artist” and felt like it was an aggressive act.

 

Now, I am assuming this in a slightly indulgent way but, he probably made a reassuring (and wrong) assumption about my gender preferences and, in so, righting the oh-so-wrong misread signs I was supposedly sending out.

Along of course with looking-so-sad, which, in the absence of tears, is probably more to do with being absorbed in thought and a general expression, than my actual physical and emotional state; thought being something he obviously didn't engage with before opening his mouth.

If I’d been a better actor I could have spontaneously burst into tears! that probably would have got an entertaining reaction.

But then I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised (and no I’m not jealous here, just exasperated)…. With the rise of tv-video-rash of objectified female forms and attitudes of *damsels* in distress; think  Avril Lavergne's false-hard-girrrrrrl and Alexis Jordan fluttering her baby-girl falsies like there literally wasn't a tomorrow nor indeed had ever been a yesterday!.

 

Feminism, the female form, attitudes to it and because of it, Genderism, call it what you like; Art, emotion and its relevance to today? Indeed !

I will be doing a full-on-photo-spread of Juliao Sarmento in a couple…. : )

 

In the mean time I will take a stroll down to the cafe and see if my *amigo* of a few days really is the one whose not offended !

 

 

back in a couple………